null references redux + Looney Tunes

[language_fan]

On Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:32:28 -0400, Jeremie Pelletier wrote:

> I don't believe D is having some features merely to attract attention to
> it, that's the thing I like best about D; it provides a very large set
> of tools and let me choose how to use them, instead of enforcing a
> certain model or paradigm.

There has to be some limit on the amount of features a language can have 
before managing the complexity gets too large. Imagine that D 4.0 had 50 
keywords more than D 2.0 currently has. Those features would make your 
code 5% faster. Would you still love D?

> Pointers are a critical feature of D, they allow both binary
> compatibility with C code and optimizations not possible without
> pointers. I use pointers all the time in D, just not nearly as much as I
> would in C/C++.

I did not argue against pointers, in general! Pointers can be useful but 
you do not need the C style syntax for declaring pointers to functions 
anywhere. I find it hard to read, especially after reading too much maths 
or functional code.